Melodies of a Maneki Neko
by Stray Neko
Summary: Incomplete/Abandoned Gah! I feel horrible! I can't remember where I was going with this. Takes place after the anime, what will happen when an oni is on the lose and we don't know where it is?


Hey everybody! Stray Neko here. So this is my first fanfic ever, and the idea just hit me.

Please read, and don't hate. xD. I'd love reviews. ;D

I don't own Tactics, as much as I wish I did though….

Just a warning for you, It's going to become Haru/Kan

That means guyxguy. No likey? No ready.

Here's Melodies of a Maneki Neko  


Chapter 1: The Golden Neko.  


"Haruka! Help me!

"Kantarou!!!"

"Haru-!"

"Kantarouuuuu!!!"

As he suddenly awoke, gasping for air, and clutching his chest, Haruka, our favorite stoic tengu, began to drift back into consciousness, after being startled awake by his dream, or rather nightmare. While he lay awake contemplating what it could have meant he stared at the sky in thought.

At the same time, inside the small house, down the hall, the small fox demon, called Youko, was just beginning to rise. Yawning, and stretching as far as humanly, or in her case, demonly possible she let out a small peep before she relaxed back down to a more comfortable position, suddenly reverting all of her attention to the clock beside her futon.

"Hmmm, only five o' clock…," she softly whispered to herself," Kan-chan won't be up for three more hours, and knowing him Haruka won't show until he hears Kan-chan." She herself would usually rise with the sun, however today she found herself awake rather early, an hour and a half to be exact.

Walking to the kitchen, she softly hummed an old melody to herself, as if to not disturb Kantarou as he passed his room, knowing full well that nothing could get him up that easily. By now she was in the kitchen, preparing some tea for herself. While the water was heating up she decided to enjoy a nice breakfast, some left over manjuu buns would be a delicacy in this house at anytime, grabbing a few she sat them on a plate, which was softly placed on the table, with a kind of grace only Youko had. She began pouring the water in a cup of tea leaves, and quickly sat down to enjoy the prepared breakfast, remembering if anything could get Kanchan up, it was the smell of good food reaching his nose.

Enjoying her breakfast in peace and quiet, a rare thing in this house, she focused her attention on the doorway to outside. Hearing the flutter of wings shook her from her thoughts, looking up she saw black feathers fluttering to the ground. Taking another sip of tea she quietly said, "Haruka is obviously awake, why doesn't he come in, it's not like I wouldn't prepare him some tea as well." Setting her cup on the table, she made her way to the door.

"Haruka?" She called to the roof, "Harukaaa!?"

No reply. Putting two and two together she realized that he must have been leaving, but to where, they weren't working on any cases at the time. "Maybe he went to visit Sugino and Muu." Which indeed he had. Confused about his dream, he had flown to talk to the tengu whom it concerned, someone he could talk to openly, someone who had known him previously, before he had been sealed away in that god forbidden stone.

Wandering back to the table she began humming that same sweet melody once again. Heaven only knows where she picked it up, perhaps before she had been sealed, but it had been with her since she first met Kantarou.

She went about her way, cleaning the kitchen, getting ready for the new day, even finding time to prepare some tea for Kantarou, however when he didn't show up at his normal time she decided to make a fresh cup for him to wake up to. Reaching his room in no time with the new cup she softly knocked on the door and called in to him.

"Kaann-chaaannn! It's nine-thirty! Time to get up and work! I made you some fresh tea!"

Quietly listening beside the door for any movement from within the room she called again, "Kan-chan! I'm coming in!" She slid the door to his room open and took a step in, "Kan-chan? Kan-chan!" The papers on his desk rustled in the breeze, but remained held down by the many books and pens lying upon them. The other door, the one which lead outside to a porch, where he would often sit with Youko watching the moon and stars glitter in the night sky, or the butterflies fluttering about the flower bushes, however, today that porch, and his room were empty. The only sign of life was the smoke rising from a recently blown out candle, and the slightly disturbed sheet on the futon.

"Maybe he went somewhere with Haruka…,' she thought out loud, "Maybe an inside job or something of the sort, I suppose I'll leave this here for now…" Making her way through the mounds of books and papers strewn across the floor she softly placed the somewhat fresh tea upon the desk.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" called Kantarou over the small counter. There was no reply from the ramen stand, even though the lights were on, the lanterns lit, and a pot of water boiling.

Kantarou had found himself awake in the early morning, far earlier than he would normally wake up. His sleep had abruptly ended after he was shaken awake by a terrifying nightmare, one which made the scar on his chest scream with pain. Unable to fall back to sleep, and sick of trying, he simply left the house to visit his demon friends in the woods. Maybe he could talk to them about his nightmare, he had already told them about everything else. Carefully being as quiet as possible to not wake Haruka or Youko, he chose to leave through the door in his room.

Along the way he passed a very curiously placed ramen stand, located in a back alley, evenly placed in between his home and the woods. It had never been there previously, yet looked as though it had been there since time had started. The red paint on the sides was beginning to peel, or had been for awhile, revealing the dark gray underneath. The shingles hanging off of the bullied roof were beginning to fall, many only being held on by one corner. Inside the actual stand there were so many decorations and scrolls on the wall that one could only tell the color of it through the holes in the decorations themselves. A dark crimson color showed through, one not found anywhere else on the stand, the canopy being a dark, dark blue.

The small counters were chipped, creating a very rough edge, which had in time dulled to create a very worn look. The beads and lanterns surrounding the hanging had given in to the harassment of the strong wind and weather. Just blowing in the soft, comforting breeze they looked as though they would crumble and drift away with it, the canopy having had holes torn in it through the years, stray  
strings hanging down from all parts of it.

The only decoration that particularly stood out to Kantarou was the Welcoming Cat, a Maneki Neko, which at first appeared to be made of pure gold, straight from the mint. Its fur was indeed pure gold, its charm silver with gold characters. Its ears and whites of its eyes were all pure silver, the collar as well, with the collar charm matching the one it held. Although the colors would normally blend together in an array of metal, they stood out, as if someone had traced the outlines in black, though there were no such lines. The only thing nonmetal about it were its eyes, they were the purest black possible, as if there weren't really any eyes, but endless pits instead. They stared, burrowed even, into Kantarou's, creating a chill which shot down his back, resulting in goose bumps all over his skin. Although it seemed as though it could jump out at any moment, it remained sitting in the direct middle of the back wall on its own shelf, adorned with a pure black, silk cloth, which hung slightly over the edge.

However his bracelet, which hung loosely around his left wrist, was the stillest it had ever been, no sound not even when he jingled his hand, almost as if some unknown force was keeping it silent with all it's might.

"I wonder what this could be, if it were a demon my scar would act up, and I feel fine, so why does it want my bracelet quiet?" he thought as he called out again. "Hello? Is there anybody here?," Reverting his attention from the neko, he leaned over the counter to take a look. "Hmm…no reply, suppose I should keep going now. Goodbye little Neko." he said as he began back on the path to see his friends, not noticing for quite sometime that the bracelet he wore had begun to shake as he walked away from the quaint little stand, a slim trail of smoke rising from his wrist as he walked.

"Oi, What brings you here today Oni-eating-tengu-san?" Asked Sugino playfully, just trying to annoy Haruka a little bit, it had proved entertaining before. Books and pillows, clothes and dishes, nothing survived Sugino's wrath when Muu-chan went missing. "Muuuuuuuchaaaan. Why do you do this to me?" He complained while searching behind and under everything he could. His adorable Muu chan had decided to disappear once again.

"I was actually about to head to your place, Muu-chan is just too attached to that stupid Master of yours. Did something happen between you two again?" Sugino ranted as he tossed more pillows and dishes about the tree house. "Muuuuuuu-chaaaaaaannnnn!!!!!!" He loudly complained some more, not even noticing that Haruka had silently made his way to his normal perch at their tree home, the tree branch right outside the window.

Tuning out the noise from within, he sat there trying to think about his dream al by himself. He already knew full well that when in a state like this Sugino's judgments and normal thoughts were often tossed out, only to be replaced with thoughts of his sweet little Muu chan.

"Muuuuuuu-chaaaaannnn!!!! You're so mean to me!!!"

As she sat there reading over some of Kan-chan's previous works Youko was startled to hear someone at the door. After a quick thought of whom it could be she dashed over to open it, only to see Reiko-san, Kan-chan's editor stressing about, occasionally letting some form of a threat escape her mouth.

"Reiko-san! I wasn't expecting you for two more days! Please come in, I'll make some fresh tea right away!" She exclaimed as she ran out to grab Reiko by the arms to drag her inside.

From the kitchen Youko could hear Reiko-san destroying Kan-chan's room. "SENSEIIII!!!!! Wherever you are you better hurry up and get back here!! THIS ARTICLE WON'T WRITE ITSELF, YOU KNOW!?"

Making her way towards his room, Youko decided it would probably be best to keep too much damage from taking place.

"Reiko-san, I've prepared you some tea, would you like to come out here and talk for a bit?" she said to the now almost comatose woman as she pulled her by the arm.

Through this talk she was informed by Reiko-san that Kan-chan's deadline was NOT in two days, but TODAY. She normally knew his deadline, and would make him work, but she was in town at her job the last time Reiko-san had stopped by. She now knew that Kantarou had taken it upon himself to give her the wrong information, telling her the wrong deadline, which he said was in a couple days. Furious about the lack of money coming into the house she made sure she would never miss another one of Reiko-san's visits, and as soon as he stepped foot in the house Kantarou was to be locked in his room, no food, with only that old tea to drink until he finished the article.

With Reiko-san stressing out and Youko steaming her ears off, it's no wonder as to why they didn't see any other visitors all day. Rosary had stopped by but soon decided to return home after suffering from a rain storm of impaling objects thrown by Youko and Reiko-san. While they were busy ranting about Kantarou they didn't even take the time to look up before they started throwing whatever they could manage to get their hands on, not aware that their victim was the sweet blonde haired girl and her stuffed animal. Luckily she managed to slide the door back closed and escape the onslaught on objects before she got her. They continued yelling at Kantarou, not realizing he wasn't there, nor that fact that no one was there. Then noticing that not even the paper of the shoji door had survived their violent attack, they slowly shifted their eyes towards each other, sharing an equally blank stare between them, both wondering if the door had even opened in the first place.

As the breeze began to blow increasingly stronger a lantern was blown out, and the glare the neko gave off became even more incriminating than before.

Ennnnd

Soooo what did you think? Please leave a review! And please no flames. Any ideas I could possibly use?


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